A poem with cinquain stanzas in response to The Secret Keeper’s Weekly Writing Prompt #26:
Beauty norms ban hairs on certain body places, weeds to be exterminated, banished. Landscapes, well-known customs define natural views: we replace meadows with green sod patches. Rebel! the way is clear, let's trust pure sensation questioning imposed notions of Beauty.
The five prompt words are: ‘clear, way, ban, patch, rebel’—I wrote a second poem using these words:
A patch of weeds flourishes, wild plants show off, native flowers buzz, A rusty pesticide can languishes on a broken shelf, abandonned since the Ban, Wild grasses rebel They have boldly taken over what once was a 'lawn', Chop and clear, a forgotten trend, Uncultured diversity has won, Nature leads the way.
This second poem also incorporates The Secret Keeper five prompt words. Many thanks to The Secret Keeper for these inspiring words. Please visit the link at the top of this post to find other challenge entries.
In poem #2 I wanted to go beyond the rhetoric in the first poem and ended up with a fantasy vignette— actually a reality in some places. I was in Ottawa (Canada) last summer and was thrilled to see how many people have wild gardens in front of their homes. The term ‘wild plants’ came from The Secret Keeper in a recent comments exchange about milkweed.
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I especially love the first poem, first stanza, the comparison really made me think.
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It’s a hard issue to talk about–layered norms, taboos, stigma etc I’m happy to hear that the weed comparison put a light on it.
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Love these both. “questioning imposed notions of/Beauty.” Yes.
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Thank you 🙂 it’s easy to be persuaded by the norms — sometimes hard to stand by something different.
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A powerful case for letting plants be free. Wild flowers and food is amazing. I especially love wild berries. Tried wild mushrooms, but that can be dangerous unless you are an expert. My first attempt ended up with a few poisonous specimens mixed amongst the good. Leave mushrooms to the experts. The idea of seeing a lawn covered in a wild setting in their front yard visualizes as beautiful. I loved making paths in wild grasses when I was a kid. it was higher than me. The grasses bounced back. No crop circles. Your poems are divine and the way land should be. Maybe small patches of tamed grass. If I had the area, I’ve always wanted a rock garden full out wild with waterfalls and wild flowers and grasses and an assortment of shapes, sizes and colors of rocks, all natural edges.Wild is the way to go. Include the animals of the planet in this idea. No 500 lions is not enough to consider the population overflowing. Take it to making architecture making structures appear connected to the flow of nature. Great poems. Love them both.
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Thanks for your interesting reflections:). Foraging has its appeal but as you say, one needs to be careful. I also wonder about location of wild plants–sometimes people forage by highways where there is much potential for toxins. The only difficulty with high grasses these days is the increasing populations of ticks which I have learned about the ‘hard’ way but saying that, we can have paths and walkways. There is a lot of open area where I live–that’s the way it was when we arrived. I’m thinking about how to diversify…although wild plants do flourish :). but for now growing vegetables is my main focus.
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A good focus growing your own veggies. We are going to try an herb garden and some potted grape tomatoes. We are also fortunate to live next to two parks and a fice minute walk to a good size lake. Then we have waterfalls and river. Unfortunately, [keep on mind we live in an idyllic village], but we had a commercial site on the outside of town who left a number of years ago. We found out this part weekend they had left behind toxins than somehow leaked into the river behind the building. We use the town water supply, so we are safe, water tested and filtered, but 100 homes who have wells, they are not so lucky. They well are contaminated. The state is helping out with free water in bottles. And the owner from the factory is paying for and doing the clean-up. I was dumbfounded to hear all this. We live in a place this should not be happening. So really, no place is safe. I guzzle this water daily, so I was relieved about our water but I know some of the people effected who have wells. One use to be my therapist. It really sucks.
The carefree days of drinking cold water from wells and streams is pretty much a past memory.
It was 75 here yesterday. Today it is raining and colder again but it felt like summer yesterday and that was great to breath in that fresh air. Our cats were delighted when I threw open all the living room windows. I felt like I could breath again.
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It is lovely to have warmer air again–didn’t fully realize how constricting the cold was becoming. Having to resort to bottled water is tragic. I wonder whether some day our well might dry up…that comes up during summer droughts.. rain and tons of melting snow is the trend right now. Your garden project sounds like fun– I grow herbs as well. Our top favourites are basil and dill.
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You’re quite the poet Janice. My favourite is the second poem but they are both excellent.
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Thank you Marje 🙂
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